Free Adrift in the Sound by Kate Campbell Page B

together to keep from smiling. She hoisted her long legs over the side of the cot, leaned forward to tell the story.
    “I looked at her and her eyes were like BBs, hard and black. Evil. I saw it. Teeth like a shark. Really bad chi, scary.”
    “Did you tell the nurses?”
    “No. I took ripped pages from the book I was reading and crumpled them up on the floor. I’d found matches hidden under the mattress when I first got there and got them out, set the paper on fire.”
    “What?” Marian said wide-eyed.
    “The girl started yelling and freaking out,” Lizette went on, rocking on the side of the cot, laughing in soft tinkles that started Marian giggling. “She called me a crazy bitch and said, ‘What the hell’re you doing?’ I told her I was building a fire. She goes, ‘What for?’
    I said, “To cook the fish when you catch it.”
    “My God, Lizzie. How did you think of that?” Marian crossed the small room to the cot and hugged Lizette. “What happened to the fisherman?”
    “They told me later she always tries crazy stuff like that to freak-out roommates so she can get rid of them and get a private room. They knew all about her. She has had multiple involuntary admissions.”
    “She stomped out the fire and called the nurses.” Lizette pulled the neck of her flannel shirt across her lips to contain her laughter. “She told them I was nuts and she wanted to be moved to a private room.”
    “What’d the nurses do?”
    “They took her out and put her in with a girl they kept in diapers because she rubs shit on herself. A couple of days later the black-haired one slashed the baby girl with broken glass. I think they finally took her to jail because she was too crazy to keep in the nuthouse.”
    Marian burst into laughter. Lizette offered a sly grin because she knew Marian would misread her smile and be satisfied by her stories, wouldn’t probe any deeper.
    “Well. It’s over now,” Marian said and sighed. “You’re safe here.”
    Marian picked up a hair brush from the shelf and lifted Lizette’s wispy hair, made quick swipes at the ends to get the snarls out, then took long strokes down the length of her hair from the scalp to the middle of her back. Lizette pulled away from the strokes, her eyes watering from the pull. “When do you have to go back to see the doctor?”
    “Never.”
    Marian frowned, figured they could call later and find out.
    “Let’s go stretch.” She headed for the door. “Get your sandals on. You need to get the kinks out.”
    The sun spread across the damp skirt of the meadow below the cabin, soft wind breathed through the grasses. Lizette, towering above Marian’s petite, round shape, trudged to the platform, groggy and still sore from the beating in the alley. Sometimes her rib ached and her vaginal muscles went spastic at odd moments. She climbed the crude stairs at the platform’s side. Marian sat in Lotus position and began to breathe loudly through her nose.
    “I’m doing Ocean Breath—Ujjayi Pranayama,” Marian said, hissing air through her sinuses. She sat on the platform facing the sea and Shaw Island in the distance, its outline gray-blue in the mist.
    Lizette kicked off her sandals, sat down, put the soles of her feet together and bounced her knees. The waves roiled and spread water across the sand in front of them.
    Open to the morning,” Marian said. “Let it dissolve your barriers, embrace the healing.”
    She pushed forward and stretched her arms over her folded legs and missed Lizette’s scowl. Marian slipped back into Child’s Pose , her back lifting and falling with easy, noisy breath. Lizette followed, keeping an eye on her. They pushed into Downward Facing Dog together, pulled forward into Plank . Lizette collapsed into a rumpled pile when she tried Crocodile .
    “Go to Child’s Pose ,” Marian instructed like a fussy schoolmarm and Lizette was on the verge of telling her where to stick it. “It’s a recovery position. It’ll take you